Those who know the Brent Spence Bridge best know what's wrong with it.

• Planners describe congestion: Drivers collectively lose the equivalent
of 60 days of time
every day because of gridlock.

• Inspectors describe wear and tear: Left untouched, they say, the
lower "chord'' or frame
of the bridge will eventually fracture like a paper clip wiggled back and
forth.

• Police describe horrifying accidents: A fatal wreck this week in
which a semi obliterated a
Dodge Shadow witnesses say was having car trouble might have been avoided
if the bridge
had emergency lanes.

Altogether, they describe a bridge that's growing old
and is no longer big enough for the job.

And it's an important one.

Nearly two cars a second drive onto the
double-decker bridge, which is the funnel over the
Ohio River for two crisscrossing north-south
interstates, I-75 and I-71. Trucks move $24.5 billion in
commodities annually along I-75 alone, the busiest
interstate trucking route in North America. And local
commuters use the bridge to get between Ohio and
Kentucky.

So when Kevin Rust, Kentucky Transportation
Cabinet engineer in charge of pre-construction, considers the task of replacing
the Brent
Spence Bridge, he puts it in this perspective:

"It's one of those once-in-a-career projects, probably the biggest to come
around here for the
20 or 30 years I'll be here," Rust said.

The project -- which begins in earnest next month with the commencement
of a $2 million,
2*-year study -- will be a financial and engineering challenge, eventually
requiring $425
million in 2002 dollars, about a decade of planning and constructing and
a creative strategy
to avoid disastrous rush-hour gridlock while detouring or restricting traffic.

Transportation officials expect the cost of the Brent Spence Bridge project
will require the
federal government to double Greater Cincinnati's allotment of transportation
funds the year
construction begins.

"A project of this magnitude would normally take as much money as the region
normally gets
for all its projects. You're talking about going to the U.S. Congress and
saying we need twice
what we normally do," Rust said.

"It's a big project, and it's going to take a long time and cost a lot
of money," said Jon
Deuser, chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., of Southgate.
"But it's got to be
done."

Bunning is prepared to push for the bridge money, "but that is a big chunk
of change,"
Deuser said. "But it helps that the bridge spans two states."

The study will be conducted by Burgess & Niple engineers, pending completion
of contract
negotiations with the firm.

Construction will take three to four years and won't begin for at least
five years, planners
estimate, due to the massive amounts of planning and financial gathering.

• Why it's needed: Brent Spence, built in 1963, carried 149,000 vehicles
a day in 2001, far
over its recommended capacity of 100,000 vehicles a day.

On a scale of A to F, with A being the least congested, Brent Spence is
already graded an F
during rush hour, and C or D at other times.

"There are just not enough lanes to maintain an acceptable level of service,"
Rust said.
"Oftentimes in rush hour we hit a level of service F, which means traffic
comes to a standstill
and there's no movement. That can vary greatly anywhere from a minute to
20 minutes."

Wally Whalen said the commute from his Florence home to his job in Woodlawn
has evolved
into a 50-minute commute in the 27 years he's been driving it. Traffic
used to start slowing
around Fifth Street in Covington; now it slows around Buttermilk Pike in
Fort Mitchell.

"Each decade, I guess, it's gotten progressively worse," Whalen said.

The number of trucks has particularly increased, he said. "Last night,
it was wall-to-wall
trucks. So it looks like a huge wall of steel waiting in line to go across
the bridge.

"Trucks take a longer time to get going and once traffic starts to open
up and get past the
bottleneck, the trucks just take -- because of their size and weight --
a long time to get
going."

A number of trucking companies have instituted their own detour routes
around the crowded
bridge during rush hours, said Ned Sheehy, president of Frankfort-based
Kentucky Motor
Transport Association, a trade organization for the trucking industry.

"Some trucking companies will avoid it at all costs, especially during
rush hour. Some
companies have taken it upon themselves to have a restriction on that road
especially
through the (I-71 tunnel)," Sheehy said.

Diana Martin of the Ohio Department of Transportation said the widening
is necessary for the
economic stability of Greater Cincinnati and other communities that rely
on I-75 and I-71 to
transport goods and keep the economy rolling.

Growing congestion prompted Kentucky to eliminate emergency lanes in 1986,
expanding it
from three lanes in each direction to four. But now disabled cars and trucks
and other
vehicles forced to stop behind them are at the mercy of traffic that may
or may not slow down
or change lanes in time to avoid a collision.

Covington police say that may have been what happened Monday morning, when
a semi
smashed into the back of a car witnesses said was driving slowly without
lights.

Todd Whatley, 41, of Covington died instantly, his car crushed and partly
under the truck.
Police are still investigating but speculate he had mechanical trouble
and had no place to
pull off.

"Had the vehicle been out on an emergency strip, maybe the truck wouldn't
have hit it,"
Specialist George Russell said.

For the safety of officers and other motorists, Covington police won't
stop speeders or
reckless drivers until they have crossed the bridge, he said. "It's unsafe
for anybody to
actually stop on that bridge."

Heavy traffic volume coupled with the absence of emergency lanes has resulted
in an
accident rate on the bridge that exceeds the Kentucky interstate rate by
750 percent,
according to the 1998 study.

Structurally, the bridge is still safe but aging. If major repairs aren't
made, the steel in the
bridge's underside and approaches will eventually grow too fatigued to
be safely crossed,
Rust said.

"The biggest problems would be in the lower chord, the steel on the under
side of the bridge.
It's just like taking a paper clip and wiggling it back and forth a couple
times. Eventually you
have a fracture. We would have to at some point strengthen and stiffen
that lower chord.
That's where we would see the most stress," Rust said.

"It's not worn out now. We're just afraid that over the next 20 or 25 years
it will wear out. It
either has to be replaced or supplemented before that happens," Rust said.

• What could be done: The new study, which is being led by the Kentucky
Transportation
Cabinet, will identify six options for replacing or renovating the bridge.
The options are
expected to be similar to those in a 1998 study, including:

• Replacing the bridge on the same site with a new five-lane, double-deck
bridge.

• Building a new five-lane, double-deck bridge just west of the existing
bridge.

• Building two new five-lane, single-deck bridges just west and east
of the existing bridge.

• Building a companion bridge and rehabilitating the existing bridge.

• Building a companion bridge and replacing the existing bridge.

• Building a new bridge far west of the existing bridge. This would
require miles of new
lanes parallel to Freeman Avenue in Cincinnati and running roughly parallel
to the Ohio River
and I-75 in Ludlow and Covington until reconnecting with existing lanes
around Kyles Lane
in Fort Wright.

Rust said other options may be added as the study progresses. The consultants
will whittle
the options down to two or three by the end of the 30-month study.

Engineers will also conduct the first full study of the soundness of the
bridge since 1985.

"We want to see with the current traffic and projections how long before
the Brent Spence is
structurally deficient," Rust said.

Finding that out will help planners decide whether it's more cost efficient
to tear down the
bridge or bolster it for more use.

The next step after the study is an environmental assessment and additional
work with local,
state and federal authorities to iron out the best plan and to fund it.
Even the routine
environmental study carries the risk of complication -- though far from
pristine, the area is
near the habitat of the Indiana Bat, an endangered species that roosts
in dead trees, for
example.

Rust said the best-case scenario would mean starting construction in five
or six years -- 2007
or 2008. Sam Beverage, the state's chief engineer in Northern Kentucky,
said it's not
unusual for the process to extend to six to eight years.

With construction lasting three to four years, it could be eight to 12
years before the new
bridge is finished.

However, project boosters led by a team assembled by the Northern Kentucky
Chamber of
Commerce have a more ambitious timeline in mind that would have the project
budgeted in
the federal six-year transportation plan by fall, and have the project
completed by 2009.

Beverage plans to save time and money by running many components of the
project
simultaneously.

The environmental impact study, for example, could begin in 2004, midway
through the
feasibility study. Before the environmental component is finished, the
final design could
begin.

The engineering feasibility study starts in February with the premise that
whatever
configuration is chosen will result in five lanes in each directions instead
of four.

Widening by one lane in each direction is expected to upgrade rush-hour
traffic to about a
grade E -- better than failing, but worse than a D.

State and local transportation officials can change their minds and pursue
more lanes if they
discover an extra lane won't even pull the bridge out of an F grade, but
they appear
resigned to creating a slight improvement in traffic flow.

"The outlook for the level of service in the entire I-75 corridor is not
much better," said Judi
Craig, I-75 corridor manager at the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council
of Governments.
"We're in a situation where to do nothing (with Brent Spence Bridge) would
be absolutely
devastating, but we need to at least improve it to keep it viable."

Planners also will focus efforts on keeping traffic moving during construction
to keep the
economy running.

A traffic management plan completed in 1997 predicts closing lanes on the
bridge would
mean "several hours" more peak traffic congestion a day. Volume on Clay
Wade Bailey
Bridge, just east of Brent Spence, is expected to soar 149 percent.

Temporarily closing Brent Spence would mean traffic on Clay Wade Bailey
would explode
more than 350 percent, according to the study.

No options are off the table for diverting traffic, including barring 18-wheel
trucks from using
Brent Spence by diverting them to I-275 or I-471.

• Who pays: While the bridge's importance to interstate commerce
and travel is plain to the
region's residents and businesses, securing $400 million or more in federal
funds to get the
project done is by no means a foregone conclusion.

The Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce will launch its lobbying effort
to secure federal
funds on its annual trip to Washington in February. About 70 business and
government
leaders from Northern Kentucky are expected to make the trip.

"While we know that (the final plan) won't be done for a while, we think
we have to sensitize
people to the urgency of this project. We have to have everyone lined up
to be supportive,"
said Gary Toebben, chamber president.

"That effort will take cooperation from everyone in the Greater Cincinnati
area and all of our
neighbors who live near I-75 and I-71 throughout Ohio and Kentucky."

The chamber and others will solicit help from all three congressmen representing
Cincinnati
and Northern Kentucky, all four senators from Ohio and Kentucky, plus other
key legislators
like Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, Ky., chairman of the House Appropriations
Subcommittee
on Transportation.

"It will be a tough sell," Toebben said. "We will have to make the case
that we have no
alternative."

Stan Lampe, Ashland Inc. communications director and volunteer chairman
of the chamber
group headed to Washington, said the Republican sweep into Senate control
bodes well for
funding the project.

"With Senator (Jim) Bunning on the finance committee and Sen. (Mitch) McConnell
on the
appropriations committee, virtually every nickel and dime that is spent
in Washington will pass
through their committees," Lampe said. "The Brent Spence isn't safe, and
we all know that.
We believe that our congressmen and our senators will respond to our community's
request."

U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Westwood, said he's optimistic about the chances
of funding,
"but we're all going to have to agree this is the, or one of the, significant
issues for the
region."

Lampe and other chamber representatives will push to get funding for bridge
construction
and studies into the six-year transportation plan, which will be voted
on in 2003.

He expects to know by September whether the money is earmarked.

Rust said the funding formula will likely mean the federal government pays
80 percent to 90
percent of construction costs, with a local match of 10 percent to 20 percent.

The local match is likely to be split 50-50 by Ohio and Kentucky state
governments.

• Other voices:

Widening the bridge or building a new one is particularly difficult in
a crowded urban area.

To the west of Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati is Cinergy Corp.'s electricity
substation that
serves much of downtown Cincinnati, and historical structures like Longworth
Hall. Any
expansion or new bridge to the west will have to be done with the Cinergy
plant in mind.

Kathy Meinke, Cinergy spokeswoman, said the energy company has not taken
a position on
the project at this early stage.

Joe Vogel, Cincinnati's principal transportation design engineer, said
the city anticipates the
best site for a new bridge or expanded bridge would be west of the current
location.

Cincinnati will also make sure construction doesn't undo years of work
to the Fort Washington
Way restructuring that took local traffic off the I-71 pass through downtown.

In Covington, the five-year-old Hampton Inn lies just west of the bridge
along with other
nearby homes and businesses.

"We want to make sure that we save that (hotel)," Covington City Engineer
Terry Hughes
said.

Hughes said the city's two top priorities will be ensuring that traffic
is maintained reasonably
well during construction and that property acquisition is handled properly.

Environmentalists want any bridge expansion plan to include space to add
passenger rail
lines as a more environmentally friendly alternative to more space for
pollution-causing cars.
Glen Brand, who heads Sierra Club's Cincinnati office, said it would be
premature to exclude
rail planning at this stage for Brent Spence.

"We need a safe bridge, and that's the top priority. The two issues here
are safety and cost
efficiency. That would include planning for a future rail line across the
river. We don't want to
go back and waste transportation dollars," Brand said.

Beverage said including light rail was considered in earlier stages but
is not part of the
current plan for Brent Spence. He said other bridges including Clay Wade
Bailey may be
considered should efforts to build a light-rail system revive after the
Nov. 5 rejection of a
Hamilton County tax levy to fund it.